Latin Manharlal Group, A Successful & Leading Provider of Financial Services for over two decades. It has become synonymous name with Reliability & Trust for their customers pan India with more than 200 channel partners and catering to more than 35000 clientele. Latin Manharlal group has evolved itself from mere Equity Broking business to a full fledged Financial Service Provider through its various group companies.

Monday, 5 February 2018

Union Budget 2018: Pro-Poor, Pro-Farmer

With national
polls looming next year, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has rolled out a
budget designed to help distressed farmers and rural areas while boosting
growth, jobs and private investment.

This year
budget was a mix bag of both expectations and a few surprises. Since, last
couple of years India has seen momentous changes on the economic and fiscal
front be it the demonetization or the long awaited GST reform and given that it
was the last full-fledged budget for the government, it was expected to throw
some surprises.

In the last
Union Budget before the general elections, the central government decided to
focus on something that’s never got its due in the past: Healthcare. Many
developed countries provide free healthcare to their citizens. India lagged
them. This year’s Budget gave a big boost to the healthcare and focused at
addressing the anxiety and trauma of people who cannot afford expensive medical
services.

The
government announced steps to address healthcare holistically, in primary,
secondary and tertiary care system covering both prevention and health
promotion. It announced National Health Protection Scheme, the world’s largest
government funded healthcare programme that will provide up to Rs. 5 lakh per
family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation. The Budget
also allocated additional Rs. 600 crore to provide nutritional support to all
TB patients at the rate of Rs 500 per month for the duration of their
treatment.

In this
budget, India’s farmers and villagers, as well as companies with exposure to
agriculture, emerge as the biggest winners. This budget has promised to
raise the minimum price offered to farmers for crops, while investing heavily
in agricultural markets across India. It also delivers more money for rural
areas, including irrigation projects and aquaculture projects, and directs
state governments to purchase extra solar power generated by farmers using
solar-powered pumps.

Under housing
for all, the government has announced the construction of one crore houses in
rural areas under the Prime Minister Awas Yojna Rural. In urban areas the
assistance has been sanctioned to construct 37 lakh houses. The government will
also establish a dedicated Affordable Housing Fund (AHF).

For senior
citizens, the government announced enhanced exemption on various counts. The
increase from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 50,000 on interest earned on deposits with
banks and post offices, fixed deposits and recurring deposits. TDS will not
apply on such income under Section 194A. The deduction limit for health
insurance premium and/or medical expenditure was raised from Rs. 30,000 to Rs.
50,000, under section 80D. Under Section 80DDB, the deduction limit for certain
critical illness medical expenses for senior citizen (Rs. 60,000) and very
senior citizens (Rs. 80,000) has been raised to Rs. 1 lakh. Four – the limits
for the PM Vaya Vandana Yojana, that provides a pension plan with guaranteed
returns of 8 per cent, have been doubled to Rs. 15 lakh.

However, the
government announced no change in the personal tax slabs saying that the government
had made many positive changes in the personal income-tax rate applicable to
individuals in the last three years. In a major move to provide relief to
salaried taxpayers, the government allowed a standard deduction of Rs. 40,000
in lieu of the present exemption in respect of transport allowance and
reimbursement of miscellaneous medical expenses.

Budget 2018
has proposed to hike the cess on income tax from 3 per cent to 4 per cent
thereby increasing the tax payable by all categories of tax payers. Due to this
change, the tax liability for highest tax bracket (assuming Rs 15 lakh income)
goes up by Rs 2,625. For middle income tax payers (between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 10
lakh) the tax liability increases by Rs 1,125 and for lowest tax brackets (Rs
2.5 lakhs to Rs 5 lakhs) by Rs 125.

Finance
minister Arun Jaitley introduced the much talked about long term capital gains
tax (LTCG) on sale of listed securities on gains of over Rs1 lakh. Jaitley,
introduced a long-term capital gains tax of 10 percent if the gains exceed Rs
100,000 without allowing the benefit of indexation. However, all gains till
31st January 2018 will be grandfathered and short term capital gains remains
unchanged at 15 percent. However, any gains in excess of Rs 20 earned after
31st Jan 2018 will be taxed at 10 percent if this share is sold after 31st July
2018

According to
the Economists, Union Budget 2018 has focussed on agriculture and rural
economy, health, infra, senior citizens and aims to work towards improving
living standard in India.

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Latin Manharlal Group, A Successful & Leading Provider of Financial Services for over two decades. It has become synonymous name with Reliability & Trust for their customers pan India with more than 200 channel partners and catering to more than 35000 clientele.
Latin Manharlal group has evolved itself from mere Equity Broking business to a full fledged Financial Service Provider through its various group companies.